Cryrian Defense Forces: Difference between revisions
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Government-sponsored nuclear research in Cryria dates back to 1941 with the founding of the King Albert Materials Institute in Leidenstad. Early experiments with nuclear material were also conducted by civilian researchers at the University of Leidenstad. It was not until after Ethalrian nuclear tests in the 1950s that KAMI was directed by the Ministry of Defense to examine what was known about these new weapons. The Institute's final report would initiate discussions within the Cryrian Government regarding the peaceful and military uses of nuclear technology. Although the military interests in nuclear technology remained shrouded in secrecy, close connections soon formed between it and a civilian nuclear program run by the Ministry of Energy due to both a need to share limited resources and expertise, as well as a desire to conceal military nuclear activities beneath civilian ones. This unique Military-Civil relationship would come to define the Cryrian nuclear program throughout its history.
Beginning in 1955, KAMI was granted additional funding for nuclear weapons studies, which was granted under the cover of civil programs by the Energy Ministry. By 1956 KAMI had established a sophisticated research program that explored five designated axes - Research, materials acquisition, reactor, enrichment facility, and power plant construction, delivery system development, and weapons assembly. At this point KAMI had an estimated sixty researchers dedicated to these projects, and had sourced another sixty from other government agencies and universities. Materials acquisition became the highest initial priority. The rich Suhar uranium deposit in Tynam would not be discovered for another thirty years as mining exploration and later exploitation were
Instead, KAMI's efforts centered on the Cryrian Highlands in Älmark which had a wealth of thorium and uranium deposits located on formerly elven lands that had been gradually seized by the Tomorrow Ministry over the past decades. Thorium, at this time, was deemed to have little commercial or military use, while the Highlands' uranium deposits were large but of low-grade and were found in alum shales in the bedrock. As such, mining and processing the ore was more expensive than normal. Negotiations were opened with Älemsi Negdel to potentially access cheaper sources, but these fell through during the First Yeralik Crisis, leaving few alternatives. Beginning in 1957 KAMI's main focus was placed on building experimental reactors and developing methods to utilize the Highlands uranium to meet civilian and military needs. In that same year the state-owned energy provider RG&E publicly launched a new division to explore the development of nuclear energy options and became the public-facing front for these uranium development projects.
KAMI's projects were briefly disrupted by the White November Crisis towards the end of 1957, but subsequently enjoyed a transfer of funding and resources from the Tomorrow Ministry's soon-to-be defunct bioweapons program. By 1958 the Ministry for Defense had privately expressed its support for a nuclear weapons program in the absence of other forms of deterrence, and KAMI was effectively brought under the umbrella of Special Materials Division.
==Major Installations==
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